Wettest September in 12 yrs: Torrential rain smashes records

BALLINA has already seen the wettest September in 12 years and with 100mm of rain recorded for 24 hours until 9am on Wednesday morning, Tuesday was the wettest day of 2018 so far.

Current totals for the month measured by the Bureau of Meteorology until now sit at 220.2mm.

This is the highest rainfall recorded for Ballina Airport station in 12 years according to BoM, where the highest September rainfall was recorded as 181.4mm in 2006 (records from 1992-2018).

BoM's average September rainfall for Ballina sits at 58.8mm.

Byron Bay's mean September rainfall at Cape Byron is 44.6mm, but current rainfall totals for the month sit at 106.8mm - almost the wettest September since 2008, where 107.6mm fell (records from 2002-2018).

North Coast Storm Chasers forecaster Antonio Parancin said "a further 20-50mm may be possible in the same areas including Byron, Lennox, Evans and surrounding areas".

"Places like Casino have seen much less (rainfall) but still 20mm overnight and that's on top of about 15mm that's fallen recently so every bit is helping definitely," he said.

"Flash flooding could become a concern today (Wednesday) along the coast as showers and rain periods can and have been heavy at times. Unfortunately it looks like the event have become a lot more 'localised' and therefore mainly NE NSW and the very southern corner of SE QLD are seeing the rain."

Rainfall is set to ease across the region with a high chance of up to 6mm in Lismore, Byron Bay and Ballina tomorrow before dropping off further to less than 1mm across the region from Friday.